by Blake Hernandez
Groomed by Andrew Zuzma
his is your bread-and-butter dog. You’ve known him for as long as he’s gotten haircuts, and with age comes easy clips for comfort and stress-free grooming. The dog used here comes in for a nice all-over haircut with an old-school, squared-off teddy head. This trim can be done on all coat types.
Fig. 1) Choose a length that suits the dog’s grooming schedule, remembering that hair generally grows around half an inch every month. For this dog, we chose a 5/8” guard comb.
Fig. 2) In the case of dogs where the coat has such a strong directional lay even after prepping straight and away from the skin, you will always need to guide your clipper in the direction that the coat is laying.
Fig. 4) For the feet, comb all of the hair down past the bottom of the paw pads and scissor off any hair that crosses the plane of the foot.
Fig. 6) Hold the tail up to blend away any stray or long hairs that the clipper missed while clipping the trunk of the body and legs.
Fig. 8) The area on and around the dog’s Adam’s Apple should always be taken shorter than everywhere else on the body. In this case, we used a 1/2” guard comb.
Fig. 10) Use a fine thinning shear to blend the hair tight by the outside corner of the eye.
Fig. 12) Comb the coat forward past the end of the nose and use a thinning shear angled out and away to trim the hairs shorter around that area which so easily gets dirty and smelly.
Fig. 14) Comb the cheeks and lip hair down so you can continue a more squared jaw while maintaining a cleaner finish.
Fig. 16) Finish by trimming the ears. To keep them fresh and natural, you will use a fine thinning shear. For a bolder finish, use a curved scissor.
